July 2006 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Comics Shipped to North American Comics Shops
Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

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For the first seven months of the year, Diamond's overall sales including all comics, trade paperbacks, and magazines are at $223.85 million, up 13% over the previous year's pace of $197.4 million. The industry was ahead more than $26 million, and nearly $20 million of that came from Diamond's Top 300 Comics.

Marvel's Civil War #3 led the list, selling at least 290,700 copies and dropping off only slightly from the first issue's totals. Orders for DC's issues of 52 were again only estimated by Diamond, owing to that title's returnability -- but estimates for all four were above 98,000 copies, with #11 and its introduction of a new Batwoman appearing in fourth place. (Without the reduction, Batwoman's debut issue really was the third-place comic.) The series would become nonreturnable in August. Fourteen comics had sales over 100,000 copies.

The same top four publishers appeared in the same order in every market share category measured: Marvel, DC, Image, and Dark Horse. Parity returned to the offerings between the Big Two as DC had 88 comics in the Top 300 versus Marvel’s 87.

Diamond did not release the dollar sales rankings for the comics in 101st through 300th place this month.

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 300 chart. If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.
Where dollar rankings were not available, "999" is listed for sorting purposes.
Items marked with asterisks [*] had their reported orders reduced by 10% due to returnability.
Distributor charts are regional commodity reports, not measures of a work's total reach. Read our FAQ.
The links lead to current listings for each item on eBay. You can also find the books at your comics shop.

July 2006 Graphic Novel Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Graphic Novels and Trade Paperbacks Shipped to North American Comics Shops Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 100 chart. If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.

The links lead to details about each title on Amazon. You can also find the books at your comics shop.

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A strong July for Diamond's Top 100 trade paperbacks finally brought the Top 100 trade category into positive territory for 2006. July's sales of Top 100 trade paperbacks to retailers were 25% over those for July 2005. Sales of trade paperbacks in general were never actually down, just this top-most portion of Diamond's inventory which might be regarded in some sense as the front of the frontlist.

Note: This category diverges slightly from Diamond's reported measures for all comics and graphic novels. Slight differences are introduced by the presence of magazines and other factors.

Average cost of comics in the Top 300:$3.24

Average cost of comics in the Top 300, weighted by orders:$3.06

Average cost of comics in the Top 300:$2.91

Average cost of comics in the Top 300:$2.99

Average cost of comics in the Top 300:$2.99

MARKET SHARES

Share of Overall Units

Marvel

44.30%

DC

35.94%

Dark Horse

3.74%

Image

2.95%

Dynamic

1.86%

IDW

1.59%

Wizard

0.96%

Avatar

0.86%

Tokyopop

0.80%

Viz

0.77%

Devil's Due

0.63%

Archie

0.50%

Bongo

0.36%

Udon

0.35%

Fantagraphics

0.28%

Gemstone

0.28%

Oni

0.17%

Digital Manga

0.16%

Random House

0.15%

ADV

0.12%

Other

3.22%

Share of Overall Dollars

Marvel

40.42%

DC

33.94%

Image

3.94%

Dark Horse

3.83%

Tokyopop

1.98%

Viz

1.70%

IDW

1.60%

Wizard

1.60%

Avatar

0.97%

Dynamic

0.75%

Fantagraphics

0.67%

Gemstone

0.63%

Digital Manga

0.56%

Random House

0.54%

Devil's Due

0.48%

Bongo

0.36%

Archie

0.36%

ADV

0.35%

Udon

0.32%

Oni

0.27%

Other

4.73%

Items in Top 300

DC

88

Marvel

87

Image

29

Dark Horse

12

Archie

11

IDW

11

Avatar

10

Boom

5

Devil's Due

5

Alias

4

Bongo

4

Gemstone

4

Dynamic

3

Fantagraphics

3

Udon

3

Virgin

3

Archaia

2

Abstract

1

American Mule

1

Broadsword

1

Burlyman

1

Dabel

1

Kenzer

1

Markosia

1

Mirage

1

New England

1

Oni

1

Wildcard

1

Slave Labor

1

Thrillhouse

1

Superverse

1

Viz

1

Zenescope

1

Share of Units in Top 300

Marvel

47.79%

DC

39.43%

Image

2.89%

Dark Horse

2.71%

IDW

1.69%

Dynamic

0.93%

Avatar

0.77%

Archie

0.50%

Devil's Due

0.44%

Udon

0.41%

Bongo

0.39%

Virgin

0.22%

Gemstone

0.21%

Boom

0.18%

Burlyman

0.17%

Broadsword

0.13%

Alias

0.13%

Abstract

0.12%

Fantagraphics

0.12%

Archaia

0.09%

Zenescope

0.08%

Kenzer

0.07%

Oni

0.07%

Wildcard

0.07%

Superverse

0.06%

American Mule

0.05%

Dabel

0.05%

New England

0.05%

Thrillhouse

0.05%

Markosia

0.04%

Mirage

0.03%

Viz

0.02%

Slave Labor

0.02%

Share of Dollars in Top 300

Marvel

48.41%

DC

37.85%

Image

3.26%

Dark Horse

2.46%

IDW

1.82%

Avatar

0.96%

Dynamic

0.96%

Devil's Due

0.53%

Udon

0.47%

Archie

0.46%

Bongo

0.39%

Gemstone

0.32%

Virgin

0.21%

Boom

0.21%

Fantagraphics

0.20%

Burlyman

0.20%

Alias

0.15%

Broadsword

0.12%

Abstract

0.12%

Kenzer

0.11%

Archaia

0.10%

Wildcard

0.09%

Zenescope

0.08%

American Mule

0.07%

Oni

0.07%

Superverse

0.06%

New England

0.06%

Thrillhouse

0.06%

Viz

0.05%

Dabel

0.05%

Markosia

0.05%

Mirage

0.03%

Slave Labor

0.02%

Dollar Share of Top 300 Comics & Top 100 TPBs

Marvel

46.61%

DC

36.22%

Image

4.10%

Dark Horse

3.36%

IDW

1.75%

Avatar

0.81%

Dynamic

0.80%

Viz

0.73%

Gemstone

0.59%

Devil's Due

0.45%

Tokyopop

0.43%

Bongo

0.42%

Udon

0.39%

Archie

0.38%

Digital Manga

0.37%

Wizard

0.31%

Fantagraphics

0.29%

Random House

0.27%

Virgin

0.18%

Boom

0.18%

Burlyman

0.17%

Oni

0.13%

Alias

0.12%

Broadsword

0.10%

Abstract

0.10%

Kenzer

0.10%

ADV

0.09%

Archaia

0.09%

Wildcard

0.07%

Zenescope

0.07%

American Mule

0.06%

Superverse

0.05%

New England

0.05%

Thrillhouse

0.05%

Dabel

0.04%

Markosia

0.04%

Mirage

0.03%

Slave Labor

0.02%

THE FINE PRINT

The monthly sales estimates at right are for items shipped by Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest comic-book distributor in North America.

Diamond does not publish sales figures; instead it publishes "indexed" sales tables, in which it keys orders for all comics it lists sales for to a single comic book (usually Batman), with one “order index point” being equal to 1% of that title’s orders.

Along with other methods, we use the actual Diamond final orders from titles to approximate what an order index point equals each month.The result is applied to the Diamond charts to produce the estimates seen at right.

The figures represent only those comics and graphic novels that Diamond shipped to North American retailers in the calendar month. While Diamond's sales represent the majority of periodicals in circulation, they are a smaller portion of the overall graphic novel market.

An item may appear in more than one month's charts due to reorders; for a better idea of a comic book's overall sales, look for its end-of-year sales in the Year Overview section, where available.

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